There is a huge push by universities and industry to push women into math and science. The perception feminists like to paint is that the sciences are male dominated because they bar women from entering the profession. That may have been true in year 1800 and 1900, but not the year 2000.
Then the feminists blamed the classroom culture of bullying teenage boys as why women did not enter math and science. Even though studies have shown time after time that girls do just as well at math and science as boys whether boys are present or not.
Then feminists blamed culture for the reason why women do not enter math and science fields because society forced girls to play with dolls rather than participate in sports, as if sports are responsible for the academic success of physics professors. Yea, right!
A recent survey came out with a study that showed women do not go into the math and sciences because they don’t like it. Women prefer more social occupations. It is not the difficulty as women have entered the medial fields (medical equipment operators, nurses, doctors, pharmacy etc) in huge numbers, which is very math and science heavy, but is also seen as a social profession. What drives women to prefer social orientated professions is up for debate (nature /nurture). The fact is while there may be not as many women in the field of chemistry than men; women outnumber men in the field of pharmacy. Both fields require the same skill sets and are interrelated. To say women can’t or barred from these professions is disingenuous.

I agree that women aren't being barred from entering math and science related fields. What I will say (and I just got done posting a comment to this effect in another thread) is in my opinion women are not being really encouraged to foster their interest in math and science and explore topics beyond the normal school curriculum.

I don't think this an overt act of discrimination, I just think that it's not occurring to teachers to push young girls to explore their scientific and mathematical interests beyond what's being taught in class. And I believe that this is important, because I don't know a single person in grad school who didn't get a nudge at a relatively young age to explore problems beyond what they saw in school.

I women are naturally inclined toward certain fields, then we still need to reassess the value we place on female-dominated fields. They're undervalued. And I wonder if they were valued more, men would start being "naturally" interested in them.

I would agree that women PREFER other fields than science in general. I am a scientist - and for the most part my field is still male dominated. But , I think this is because women choose careers that allow for the integration of family and work better than my field does. Still, it would be nice to have one more women win the Nobel Prize in Physics just so we can say that Marie Curie wasnt some kind of a fluke.............

I assume you're not a woman or a scientist? Any survey that's taken is presumably taken after a person has had many years of education and hence many years of socialization to tell them that women are not supposed to be scientists. The Nature/Nurture debate is critical, b/c it tells you whether women are being discouraged from being scientists or whether they innately dislike it.

As a woman and an astrophysicist, I will agree that the overt barriers (e.g. women being barred from certain universities or jobs) no longer exist. But that doesn't mean institutional barriers don't exist. About 90% of my colleagues are men. Almost all of them are married and have children. Notably, almost all of them are married to women who are SAHMs. The reverse just isn't possible. And in my field, at least, the expectation is to be able to travel (often for a month) to telescopes, work long hours, and generally be available all the time. I'm a very efficient worker (when I'm not posting on these d*m* forums), but nonetheless that's challenging to any personal life. A problem that's magnified 100-fold for women. On top of this, leaving early to pick up a kid or spending a holiday with family instead of working is seen as an example of lack of dedication...something that will definitely affect your chances of promotion and certainly makes the field unappealing to a woman who wants a family (in a way it simply doesn't for a man as long as women are perceived as primary care givers).

I also somewhat disagree with your characterization of the various sciences. I know academics in many fields, and while history may be called a social science, the hard sciences afford many more opportunities for interaction and collaboration with other people. I spend a large fraction of my time speaking with colleagues, and critical to success in my field is the ability to write well and give clear and understandable talks.

SlateSurfer:

I assume you're not a woman or a scientist? Any survey that's taken is presumably taken after a person has had many years of education and hence many years of socialization to tell them that women are not supposed to be scientists.

And also, apparently, "Anything that anyone says about their OWN preferences is probably WRONG, whereas, my ideas about their true preferences are probably correct."

Irma:

Still, it would be nice to have one more women win the Nobel Prize in Physics just so we can say that Marie Curie wasnt some kind of a fluke.............

She wasn't. Maria Goeppert-Mayer also won the Nobel prize in physics. Also, given the political nature of the prize there were women who should have won or were part of research that won the prize. Lise Meitner is a perfect example of this.

It sounds like your male colleagues, while they are able to "have" a family, aren't necessarily able to spend as much time with their families as some men would like to. The fact that having children is more time-intensive for women (at least in the very early pahses, after a point the pertinent role could be served by either parent) is a result of biology rather than culture (and is probably a major contributor to the development of our culture in its early history). This biological fact cuts both ways, though as there's no feasible way for men to have any sort of reproductive choice past the moment of conception the way women can.

If there's a differential on how time demands at work impact personal lives, it's more a result of personal priorities, whether they be inherent or learned. There's 24 hours in a day regardless of your chromosomes (an astrophysicist should be particularly aware of this fact I would think), so if the loss of time to devote to non-work related pursuits is "magnified 100-fold for women" it's largely because men are still being raised to accept that their career largely defines them in our society (and that's not optional) while women are now being raised to expect a far less limiting life (at least that's been the growing trend for the last few decades), and that they shouldn't have to accept the traditional trade-offs regardless of what makes them necessary.

Thanks for the info - physics is obviously not my field. Glad to hear Marie has company - she was the reason I was inspired to consider science as a career .

Good point, and to put it in simple blue collar speak for the every person:

Women now have a socially acceptable choice of career provider and homemaker, homemaker, or career.

Men have a socially acceptable choice of career and provider, career, or being labled as underachieving slacker sponging off spouse.

And it really is that simple.